But the flower which I best love is one which grows by the streamside--in Wye Dale it is in profusion--the modest water-avens, often strangely undervalued by writers who describe it as "dingy." Thus in Delamer's _The Flower Garden_ it is stated that this avens "is more remarkable for having been one of the favourites, the whims, the caprices of the great Linnaeus, than for anything else: it is hard to say what, in a British meadow-weed, could so take the fancy of the Master." Was ever such blindness of eye, such hardness of heart? And the wiseacre goes on to say that "it is impossible to account, logically, for attachments and sympathies." Logic, truly, would be out of place in such a connection; but it is not difficult to understand Linnaeus's feelings towards the water-avens. There is a rare beauty in the droop of its bell-like head, and in its soft and subdued tints--the deep rufous brown of the long sepals, through which peep the silky petals in hues that range from creamy white to vinous red, and all steeped in a quiet radiance as of some old stained glass. I must own to thinking it the most tenderly beautiful of all English wildflowers. The hybrid between the water-avens and the common avens is occasionally found by the Wye: one which I saw in Miller's Dale had green sepals and petals of pale yellow. The Alpine penny-cress (_thlaspi alpestre_), a crucifer native on limestone rocks, may be seen on the High Tor at Matlock, where it grows with the vernal sandwort on debris at the mouth of caves; a graceful little plant with white flowers and a smooth unbranched stem so closely clasped by the narrow leaves as to give it the look of a perfoliate. One other limestone district shall be mentioned; the hills round Castleton. Cave Dale, approached by a narrow gorge close to the village, is well worth the flower-lover's attention; for bleak and bare as it is, its slippery sides harbour some interesting plants, such as the mountain rue (_thalictrum minus_), and the scurvy-grass (_cochlearia alpina_), both in considerable quantity. In the Winnatts, too, the steep ravine which overhangs the road from Castleton to Chapel-en-le-Frith, one may find Jacob's-ladder and other rarities on the rocks; and the gorgeous mountain pansy (_viola lutea_) is not far distant on the upland heaths and pastures. The list is far from being exhausted; but enough has been said to show that there is no lack of entertainment among these limestone dales. To enter one of them, after crossing the moorland from the dreary coal district of east Derbyshire, is like stepping from penury to plenty, from wilderness to paradise: there is a change of colouring that instantly attracts the eye. Even in early spring the little shining crane's-bill decks the walls and lower rocks with its rose-petaled flowers; and at midsummer the more showy stonecrop flings a veritable cloth of gold over the crags and lawns. Few localities present so many charming flowers in so limited a space.